The New International Encyclopædia/Wilkins, Mary Eleanor

WILKINS, Mary Eleanor (Mrs. C. M. Freeman) (1862—). An American novelist, born in Randolph, Mass., of New England and Puritan descent. She received her education at Mount Holyoke Seminary, South Hadley, Mass., and passed the greater part of her life in Massachusetts and in Vermont. Her stories dealt almost wholly with New England life, which she pictured as a dull, patient existence, but in such striking lines that her work became very widely read and was taken as representative of the New England character. She married in 1901. Her place in popular estimate was among the foremost of contemporary American novelists, with Sarah Orno Jewett, Thomas Nelson Page, George W. CabU', ami others who liave dealt with local scenes and types. Her characters rcpre- .sented, in the main, a lower social order than those of Miss .lowett, and were not so sympa- thetically but mcu'e foniljly depicted. Her chief works were: The Adventurrs of Ann (1886); A Humblr Romance (1887), which gave the author vogue; A New England Nun (1891); Young Lucretia (1802). for children; Jane Field (1892); Giles Corey (1893), a drama; Pembroke (1894); Madelon (1896); Jerome, a Poor Man (1897); Silence, and Other Stories (1898), containing some of her best work; and The Love of Parson Lord (1900). Later works were: The Portion of Labor (1901); Understudies (1901); and The Wind in the Rose Rush (1903). Much of Miss Wilkins's work appeared as short stories and serials in the leading magazines.